Providing a breather to Internet users, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Wednesday decided to extend the off-peak time for Internet services by four hours from 8 pm to 8 am, during which service providers would offer concessional rates for dial-up access to the Net.

The off-peak hours at present are 10.30 pm to 6.30 am.

Trai has not specified the extent of concession that is to be offered during the off-peak hours leaving it to the discretion of individual operators and market forces, although the regulator has cautioned that it would not hesitate to specify the extent of concessions, if required.

"It (Trai) will keep a close watch on the functioning of this arrangement and should it at any time observe that the measure is not having the desired effect, it would intervene and, if necessary, specify the extent of concessions as well," a Trai statement said.

"The concerns of the basic operators about the recovery of their costs having being largely taken care of through the new interconnection usage charge regime and the 24^th amendment to the Telecom Tariff Order, 1999, it is reasonable to expect that the operators can now, on their own offer affordable concessionary rates for dial-up access to the Internet, at least in the off peak hours," Trai said notifying 25^th amendment to the tariff order.

Trai said that the present off-peak hours offered less choice to the users in terms of time and are such that a large majority of users could not easily take advantage of concessionary rates available during the period.